More than a dozen states in the US have sued TikTok, accusing the social media platform of helping to drive a mental health crisis among teenagers.
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00:00More than a dozen states in the US have sued TikTok, accusing the social media platform of
00:05helping to drive a mental health crisis among teenagers. A bipartisan group of 14 attorneys
00:11general from across the country allege that the company uses addictive features to hook children
00:16to the app and that it has intentionally misled the public about the safety of prolonged use.
00:21TikTok called the lawsuit, disappointing, and said it believed many of the claims were
00:27inaccurate and misleading. The platform is already battling a law passed by Congress in
00:32April that would ban it from the US unless Chinese parent company ByteDance agreed to a sale.
00:38TikTok knows that compulsive use of and other harmful effects of its platform are wreaking
00:43havoc on the mental health of millions of American children and teenagers,
00:47said the lawsuit filed in New York on Tuesday. Despite such documented knowledge, TikTok
00:53continually misrepresents its platform as safe and appropriate for children and teenagers.
01:00New York Attorney General Letitia James said young people across the country had died or been
01:05injured doing TikTok challenges, and many others were feeling more sad, anxious and depressed
01:11because of TikTok's addictive features. She cited a 15-year-old boy who died in Manhattan while
01:18subway surfing, riding on top of a moving subway car.
01:22His mother later found TikTok videos of such activity on his phone, she said.
01:28TikTok claims that their platform is safe for young people,
01:31but that is far from true, Ms James said in a statement announcing the action.